Wednesday, August 10, 2005

A further word on this Chinese Suicide Bus Bombing. If the reports are to be believed it is an act of a individual farmer who had grudges against the system as it exists now in China. Apparently the tenets of Communism have changed and the ideal of "From each according to his ability to each according to his need" and is no longer valid. The Chinese health care system seems to be 'pay as you go' system. In other words, no money no health care. In the late 1970s, 94 per cent of China's villages were covered by cooperative medical schemes. As the collectives were disassembled during the market reforms of the 1980s, coverage rates fell to around seven per cent.

The suspected bomber, Huang Maojin, is said to have died on the spot.

Huang, 42, was a farmer from Fujian's Gutian County.

According to a suicide note found by police, he had been suffering from lung cancer for about two years.

In the letter, Huang said he had a dispute with one of his neighbours in 2002. He claimed he had been unfairly treated by the local public security department and was sentenced to jail until the end of 2003.

The imprisonment delayed treatment of his illness, he claimed.

Huang's family was heavily in debt and his children were unable to go to school because of lack of money, the letter said. Source: China Daily

No idea where they could have found a suicide note on a guy who was holding the bomb. A bit convenient but if we take it on face value then we are looking at not a muslim attack on the society but a society attack on itself. Perhaps more dangerous in the long run. Bomb making materials are said to be readily available in China and that bombings of this nature are common. The end of the socialist/communist structure seems to be the most important part of this story as well as the level of desperation combined with the level of violence that is possible with the supplies at hand. It makes for an increasingly shaky and unstable China which is a massive problem to the rest of the world.